Stockholm terror attacker received direct orders from ISIS leaders through Whatsapp

Rakhmat Akilov allegedly boasted the order to carry out the attack came directly from ISIS leaders in Syria.
Four people were killed and 15 injured when a stolen beer lorry mowed them down in a central Stockholm shopping district on Friday.

The murder victims included British ex-pat businessman Chris Bevington, 41, a father-of-two.

Akilov, 39, a failed asylum seeker from Uzbekistan, allegedly used WhatsApp to confess that he had “ran over 10 people in the centre of Stockholm.”

The same internet-based coded messaging service was used by Westminster killer Khaild Masood shortly before he launched his lethal attack on March 22.

WhatsApp is favoured by terrorists as it offers “end-to-end encryption” on messages that cannot be intercepted or decoded.

Owners Facebook are under pressure to install a “back door” in WhatsApp so spies can eavesdrop on terrorist communications.

Pictures of messages sent by Akilov have been published by an internet forum used by IS supporters, it was claimed yesterday.

They allegedly show Akilov boasting about Friday’s atrocity. He also made inquiries about the manufacture of explosives, it is claimed Akilov was arrested on Friday evening after he was filmed by CCTV before boarding a train at Stockholm’s central railway station.

A woman in the same carriage spotted him while she was trawling through news reports of the outrage on her mobile phone.

Police were alerted and Akilov was later detained in the Marsta district about 24 miles from Stockholm.

Dan Eliasson, the head of Sweden’s police, refused to confirm the identity of the man in custody but declared his officers were holding the killer driver.

Mr Eliasson said: “I am confident and certain that we have the right perpetrator.”

“Then it is up to the prosecutor to prove this in court.”

It emerged on Saturday Akilov came to Sweden around 2012.He and three other Uzbek immigrants were investigated over a plot to raise funds for ISIS but he was never charged with any offence.

Last December, his residency application was finally rejected and he was given four weeks to get out.

But Akilov simply went missing. Police said they had been trying to trace him.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, who vowed his country will never give in to terrorism, has announced a radical change in his country’s immigration policy.

He said: “Sweden will never go back to the mass migration we had in autumn 2015, never. Everyone who has been denied a permit should return home.”

Source: /Express